_Composers – Brahms

Brahms / Piano Concerto No. 1 on Speakers Corner Heavy Vinyl

Hot Stamper Classical and Orchestral Imports on Decca & London

UPDATE 2026

This review was written in the 90s, back in the days when we were selling Heavy Vinyl records. We had auditioned it and found it to be one of the better releases from Speakers Corner.

Based upon that very unreliable assessment from many, many decades ago, it might still be one of the better Heavy Vinyl pressings from the label. If you can pick one up for cheap, give it a try and see if we were right that it’s “good.”

Of course, the right London pressing would be a huge step up in sound quality for those who have the means to acquire one.

Our Old Review

One of the best of the Speakers Corner heavy vinyl reissues. As you may know they have gone way downhill lately. Haven’t played this LP in a while but I remember liking it quite a bit back in the day.

As a general rule, this Heavy Vinyl pressing will fall short in some of the following areas when played head to head against the vintage pressings we offer:

(more…)

Brahms / Piano Concerto No. 2 / Cliburn / Reiner

More of the Music of Johannes Brahms

  • Van Cliburn’s exceptional performance of Brahm’s Piano Concerto No. 2, here with solid Double Plus (A++) Living Stereo sound or close to it throughout this early Shaded Dog pressing
  • It’s also fairly quiet at Mint Minus Minus, a grade that even our most well-cared-for vintage classical titles have trouble playing at
  • This side one is big, full-bodied, clean and clear, with a wonderfully present and solid piano, and plenty of 3D space around it, and side two is not far behind in all those areas
  • One of the best of the Cliburn recordings – most are not very good, the worst of them being LSC 2252 and the best of them being, probably, LSC 2507 with this one right up there with it
  • We’ve liked LSC 2296 with Rubinstein and Krips in the past, but after doing this shootout we have to say that Cliburn and Reiner set a higher standard for a recording of the work
  • On the right shaded dog pressing, LSC 2581 is yet another Must Own orchestral recording from 1962

Our main listening guy made some notes about the sound of the best pressings he heard. Here is what he wrote:

This LP might be tough for some customers to reproduce. The big peak at the end of track one on side one can have some tube/compressor distortion. Only the fullest, richest copies can properly reproduce this section without the piano and low end getting lost.

(more…)

clone me Shaded Dog Stampers to Avoid on XXX passable sheet 1+

Hot Stamper Pressings of Living Stereo Titles Available Now

Even though they had the Shaded Dog label, some of the later stampers for this record were not very good sounding compared to the ones that won our shootouts.

15s on side one earned a grade that would prevent it from being sold as a Hot Stamper pressing. There was no reason to play side two (13s) since side one eliminated this copy from the competition.

The 1+ grade found on this side one means it’s simply not very good, Shaded Dog label or no Shaded Dog label.

Pressings with these stampers might be passable, even to some degree enjoyable, especially when played on an old school system, but they would not be worth bothering with on the high quality modern equipment we use.

In this case, the conventional wisdom that the original pressings will most likely have superior sound to the later-numbered copies turns out to be right.

The average Shaded Dog may be better than the average classical record, but that certainly doesn’t mean it has any claim to audiophile sound. We’ve played bad early RCA pressings by the hundreds. Now, finally, with this blog we can point some of them out to those record lovers who are more interested in top quality sound than an original label.

For those who might be interested, there’s more on our grading scale here.

There are quite a number of other records that we’ve run into over the years with obvious shortcomings.

(more…)

Is the 1s Pressing Always the Best on the Brahms Violin Concerto with Heifetz?

Hot Stamper Pressings that Sound Their Best on the Right Reissue

This early Shaded Dog pressing of the 1958 recording has surprisingly good sound on side two. On the second side the sound opens up and is very sweet, with the violin becoming much more present and clear.

The whole of side two is transparent with an extended top. Usually the earliest Living Stereo titles suffer from a lack of top end extension, but not this one.

Maybe the 1s pressing is also that way. For some reason audiophiles tend to think that the earliest cuttings are the best, but that’s just more mistaken audiophile thinking if our experience can serve as any guide, easily refuted if you’ve played hundreds of these Living Stereo pressings and noted which stampers sound the best and which do not.

The 1s pressings do not consistently win our shootouts.

About half the time, maybe less would be my guess.

Of course, to avoid being biased, the person listening to the record doesn’t know the stamper numbers, and that may help explain why the 1s loses so often.

If you are interested in finding the best sounding pressings, you have to approach the problem scientifically, and that means running record experiments.

Practically everything you read on this blog we learned through experimentation.

When we experimented with the Classic Records pressing of LSC 1903, we were none too pleased with what we heard. Our review is reproduced below.

(more…)

None of the Living Stereos with Reiner Conducting Was Better than Passable

Hot Stamper Pressings of Living Stereo Titles Available Now

For a cover this beautifully rendered, you would think the sound of the Shaded Dog pressings of LSC 2219 would be something special.

Unfortunately, as we were preparing our shootout for the work we did not find that to be the case.

We dropped the needle on some copies and judged that the grades would be roughly in the range of 1+. Some copies might be a bit better, some might be a bit worse, but most of them would have sound that was merely passable, even after a good cleaning. (Without a good cleaning, most would probably not even earn that single plus.)

We do not sell records with 1+ grades. You should have no trouble finding those on your own. The world is full of them. They’re what most audiophiles call “good sounding records.”

Our favorite Brahms Second Piano Concerto for sound and performance is LSC 2581. It was recorded for RCA only a few years later in 1962.

The average Shaded Dog may be better than the average classical record, but that certainly doesn’t mean it has any claim to audiophile sound. We’ve played bad early RCA pressings by the hundreds. Now, with the help of this blog, we can point some of them out to the record lovers who are looking for top quality sound and don’t care that much about the label.

(more…)

Tchaikovsky / Mendelssohn, et al. / 1812 Overture / Fingal’s Cave Overture & more / Reiner

More of the Music of Tchaikovsky

  • A rare and wonderful early Shaded Dog pressing that boasts excellent Double Plus (A++) sound from start to finish
  • Remarkably rich, Tubey Magical and oh-so-rosiny Living Stereo strings and powerful, dynamic brass make this a real Demo Disc quality orchestral heavyweight
  • The real stars here are NOT the 1812, but the three coupling works, which demonstrate, on this copy at least, The Real Power of the Orchestra

Lizst’s Mephisto Waltz, Mendelssohn’s The Hebrides Overture, and the Tragic Overture by Brahms are the Must Own 36 minutes worth of music on this record.

It’s an outstanding performance from Reiner and the CSO on everything but the 1812.

Say what?

Yes, it’s true. After hearing the amazing Decca pressing with Alwyn conducting, we knew early on that Reiner and the CSO were simply not competitive in terms of performance, and the RCA engineers also failed to capture the deep bass of the organ on their pressing.

What we were impressed with were the three other works, all played with verve and technical skill and as enjoyable as any music you can find on this site. Go to YouTube to listen to them if you are not familiar with the works. All of them belong in any serious music collection, and these recordings (and our Hot Stamper pressings) do them proud.

(more…)

White Dogs or Shaded Dogs on the Brahms Piano Concerto No. 2?

Hot Stamper Pressings of Living Stereo Titles Available Now

UPDATE 2024

The review you see below is quite old. We no longer agree with the statement we made back then that the White Dog pressings are better sounding than the Shaded Dogs.

In our recent shootout, the first one I can remember since 2005 — that was 20 years ago! — the White Dogs did not do nearly as well as the Shaded Dogs we played.

This White Dog pressing is the best sounding copy I’ve ever heard, much better than the earlier pressings. The piano doesn’t break up like it does on those, especially in the second movement.

Finally the piano sounds right – solid and with the correct overtones. It goes without saying that this is an exceptionally good performance as well.

One of the best of the Cliburn recordings which, as you may know, are rarely any good, the worst of them being LSC 2252 and the best of them being, probably, LSC 2507.

Seems we got some of this one wrong. Live and learn is our motto, with mea culpa running a close second.

It’s possible that our mistaken judgment about the superiority of the White Dog pressings in 2005 was mostly the result of sample sizes that were much too small. However, I was operating as a one man band back when I was doing all the classical shootouts, so my chances of getting the wrong answer were fairly high, a reality I have documented on this blog in some detail.

I also was not able to clean the records under comparison very well, a problem that has been solved — and then some — by a great many improvements in techniques, machinery and fluids over the last twenty years.

What we could do back then and what we can do now, after twenty years of constant improvement, are as different as night and day, a subject we write about quite a bit under the heading of audio progress.

I’ve also made a habit of admitting my mistakes in the hopes that other audiophile reviewers would consider following suit. To my knowledge this has yet to happen, but hope springs eternal!

(more…)

Brahms – Sonatas for Cello and Piano / Starker / Sebok

More of the music of Johannes Brahms

  • Starker and Sebok’s virtuoso performances, here with rich, dynamic, and tubey Double Plus (A++) sound throughout this original Plum Label Mercury pressing
  • Both of these sides are big, full-bodied, clean and clear, with a wonderfully present and solid piano, and plenty of 3D space around it
  • The cello is present and immediate, with sound that is remarkably textured, full and harmonically natural

(more…)

Tchaikovsky on Classic Records and the TAS List

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Tchaikovsky Available Now

We used to like the Classic Records pressing of LSC 2241 a lot more than we do now, a case of live and learn.

Our tube system from the 90s was very different from the one we are using now.

That system was noticeably darker and by all accounts far less revealing when we had auditioned the Classic sometime in the 90s, and those two qualities did most of the heavy lifting needed to disguise its shortcomings. We mistakenly noted:

HP put the Shaded Dog pressing (the only way it comes; there is no RCA reissue to my knowledge) on his TAS List of Super Discs, and with good reason: it’s wonderful!

The rest of our commentary still holds up though:

But for some reason he also put the Classic Records Heavy Vinyl reissue on the list, and that record’s not even passable, let alone wonderful. It’s far too lean and modern sounding, and no original Living Stereo record would ever sound that way, thank goodness. 

(more…)

Beethoven / Brahms – Violin Sonatas / Szeryng

More of the music of Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

More of the music of Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)

  • Szeryng and Rubinstein’s performance of these wonderful violin-piano duos appears on the site for only the second time ever, here with with STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) Living Stereo sound or close to it throughout this original Shaded Dog pressing
  • These are just a few of the things we had to say about this incredible copy in our notes: “big and rich and 3D violin”…”sweet and lively and roomy”…”very rich and present”…”great size and energy”
  • Both of these sides are Tubey Magical, lively and clear, with richness and warmth that only the best vintage vinyl pressings offer
  • Here you will find exceptionally three-dimensional sound, expanding the space of your listening room from wall to wall and floor to ceiling
  • This copy also showed us the balance of clarity and sweetness we were looking for in the violin – not many recordings from this era can do that, and not even most RCA’s, to be honest

(more…)